td_ice wrote:He has already thrown out the obligatory "Harrah's casino is projected to make 112 million more".

I imagine that this is the only real point that the politicians will push for the Harrah's proposal as it's the only thing they can say that's above what the IoC plan has.

So, if I'm reading it correctly, it's:
1. get relief of "X" dollars per year in taxes because of the amount generated by the casino AND then in 5 years have to pay probably as much, if not more, money in taxes to build a new arena for the city because the city can't afford one and have no primary tenant anyhow.

OR
2. get a smaller amount of tax relief per year due to IoC receiving the license and not get bothered later on down the road with a tax increase to build an arena...basically maintain a status quo?

When do the Penguins and IOC finally launch their aggressive campaign? It appears Harrah's, Ratner Family, Rendell, O'Connor and Onorato are working the media circuit to knockout the IOC and Barden applications.

When the Pens leave town I would love to hear what the people who voted for O'Connor and all the other losers in political offices in Pittsburgh have to say. This truly will be the final nail in the coffin for this city. WOn't be long before Pittsburgh consists of the Steelers and no one under the age of 70. It still drives me crazy that we have one of the most attractive cities in America to sell to people and we still can't do anything with it becuase of our piss poor leadership

Again, guys he is a politician. What do you expect him to say. I'm all about exposing whoever is in bed with Rendell, but you peeps react as if you expected him to say "Yes we think IOC plan is the best, we're doing all we can to support it." Please. Don't fool yourselves. If he supported one plan right now he would alienate everyone else. He's not going to do that.

The only good that comes from these interviews is exposure. The rest is fluff. I think I said all of this yesteday, I could've cpoied and pasted.

And I'll add, all of these sports reporters that are interviewing Rendell are giving the others ammo in saying that only the sports people want the Pens to stay. If "regular" reporters would do the same, it would be more impressive. We seem very biased as sports fans here. Even though logically this is the best plan, we need non-sports folks to expose it too.

Peter would WTAE's Bob Mayo satisfy your desire for a NON-Sports reporter to ask the questions? Did you forget about Andy Sheehan of KDKA doing reports every so often?

There is an obvious political line being drawn by several groups of people in this process on a daily basis and the more those groups speak, the more obvious of those who are in those 'shaded' areas of this process.